The pursuit of structurally efficient structures in the civil, mechanical, aerospace and sports arenas is an ongoing quest. An efficient truss structure is one that has a high strength to weight ratio and/or a high stiffness to weight ratio. An efficient truss structure can also be described as one that is relatively inexpensive, easy to fabricate and assemble, and does not waste material.
Increasingly, composites are seen as having the potential to replace many other structural elements. Depending on the use, composites provide greater strength and flexibility, but are more expensive than conventional materials such as wood or steel. Therefore, the replacement of conventional materials with composites is seen as beneficial, but impractical and thus their adoption in construction has been quite slow.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a composite beam that has a high strength to weight ratio, to reduce the amount of composite material used. Further, there is a need for the design of the beam to reduce or eliminate unneeded materials by utilizing a geometry which minimizes the amount of composite used while retaining as much strength as possible.